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Through the Eyes of a Child

Yesterday my husband offered me the chance to be a guest instructor for his youth Karate class, to show them some ground work, which I’ve done a few times before and always enjoyed. I was a little nervous beforehand, but it was also a good way to help alleviate some of the withdrawal from not training Jiu-Jitsu this past week (due to feeling under the weather).

It was the biggest class I’ve taught at the LMAC dojo so far, with twelve kids and one adult woman, plus half of the students were girls, and it was an awesome feeling to have so many other females around. I wore a BJJ gi and my blue belt (and Joe gave a shout out to Lincoln BJJ Center), and before class started, the kids who didn’t know who I was were looking at me as if I might be an alien, but the kids who did know me were excited that I was there, because they knew it meant that they would be grappling, which most kids seem to love!

I had a basic class plan in mind and I stuck to it, but I tried to be relaxed and not throw too much information at them, which I sometimes have a tendency to do. For the technique portion, I decided to focus on a couple of mount escapes, because I believe it’s something every Karate Kid should know if they ever end up on the ground. Sensei Joe’s students are well-disciplined, and many of them do have some familiarity with ground work, so I thought everything went very well, but of course they enjoyed the positional sparring most of all. The only compliant I heard from my husband is that his stomach hurt from all the ab exercises I made them do.

After class, one of the boys asked me when I was going to come and teach again, and I teased “Do you want to know because you want to make sure you’re not here?”, to which he emphatically responded “No! I want to be here! It was awesome!”. That sentiment was also echoed by the girls who were in the changing room with me, and they profusely thanked me for teaching the class, but I think I had just as much fun as they did.

Doing Jiu-Jitsu with kids helps me remember why I fell in love with it in the first place, and I kind of needed that at the moment. To them, it’s totally exciting and fun, there’s less pressure about their performance, and they’re thrilled with discovering what their bodies can do. Now that I’m almost over my cold and I’m feeling better, I think I’m about ready to get back to my own training with renewed enthusiasm!

“Only those who look with the eyes of children can lose themselves in the object of their wonder”
-Eberhard Arnold